Londoners will find out Friday if they have elected the first Muslim mayor of any major Western city, after an unusually bitter campaign in which race and religion have proven ugly flashpoints.
The race between Labour's Sadiq Khan, son of a bus driver, and Conservative candidate Zac Goldsmith, son of a billionaire, has seen the latter accused of peddling "vile race politics" in his campaign against his rival.
Khan, a 45-year-old lawyer and member of Parliament, is the London-born son of Pakistani immigrants, and a practicing Muslim in a city where his co-religionists comprise about 12% of the population.
Elections were held across the United Kingdom on Thursday, for mayoral positions, local council seats, and parliamentary and assembly seats in Scotland and Wales. The Scottish National Party -- which campaigned for Scotland to leave the UK in 2014 -- won more Scottish Parliament seats than any other party, but failed to secure an outright majority. Labour plunged to third, behind the Conservatives -- a result that would have seemed unimaginable several years ago in the former Labour stronghold.
Labour retained its place as the largest party in Wales — like Scotland, a traditionally left-leaning part of the country— but the pro-Brexit, anti-immigration UK Independence Party picked up its first seats there. UKIP leader Nigel Farage tweeted that "UKIP now stands up for many traditional Labour voters abandoned by Mr. Corbyn's party" -- a reference to Jeremy Corbyn, who became Labour leader last year.
The results of the London mayoral election are not expected until Friday. The campaign took a particularly vicious turn when Goldsmith, trailing his rival in polls, penned a controversial column in Britain's Mail on Sunday newspaper on May 1.